Teacher Education Redesign Initiative at the University of Minnesota

TEACHER EDUCATION REDESIGN INITIATIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

The University of Minnesotawill be known for preparing teachers who focus relentlessly on student learning and function as adaptive experts in their classrooms as a result of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative (TERI). Adaptive experts possess both the expert knowledge that is necessary for high-quality performance and the ability to be flexible and inventive in the face of non-routine situations, as described in Preparing Teachers for a Changing World published by the National Academy of Education in 2005. Teachers who are adaptive experts need not only to develop conceptual understandings, but also to have access to procedural competencies, models of practice, and ways of monitoring their own development.

By using the construct of adaptive expertise in our preparation of teachers, our teaching candidates’ learning will comprise four overlapping areas. First, they will learn the knowledge and research-based pedagogical skills necessary for beginning their teaching careers. Second, they will learn how to use assessment formatively so they can adapt their instructional practices moment-by-moment to meet the diverse learning needs of their students. We place a particular emphasis on our program completers’ ability to work effectively with students learning English as an additional language and students with special learning needs. Third, they will learn how to inquire systematically into their own practice as a means of adapting to the ever-changing demands of students, classrooms, and schools. Finally, they will know how to stay abreast of the fast-paced changes in instructional technology and use technology to enhance pupil learning.Our ultimate focus is on the academic achievement of P-12 students.

Our programs will provide a coherent preparation experience for teaching candidates through multiple clinical experiences with foundational knowledge wrapped around those experiences. We will diversify the clinical experience options for candidates by developing professional development school options within the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD)and key partner schools. Recommendation for licensure will rely on candidates’ performance on core performance assessments in key pedagogical areas, guaranteeing their effectiveness as teachers who can guide and support the learning of all students.

We intend for this work to have a positive and long-lasting influence on the children of Minnesota, our candidates’ careers as teachers, and our programs within the CEHD. This work has the strong support of the University President, the Vice President and Provost, the Dean of the CEHD, and faculty in CEHD. As a research-extensive university, we will incorporate research questions and an evaluation system into our redesign to inform TERI and generate new understanding about teacher preparation, teaching, and learning.

Program Degree and Licensing Structure

Our teacher licensing programs are predominantly at the post-baccalaureate level. Individual program structures vary within the CEHD.Some candidates complete a MEd with licensure and some programs require candidates to return after initial teaching experiences to complete the MEd requirements.We offer three undergraduate majors that can lead to our licensure programs: elementary education, early childhood education, and kinesiology (preparation for physical education licensure). UMN undergraduates in these programs choose whether to enroll in the post-baccalaureate licensure program, with approximately 95% doing so. We also prepare students for licensure at the undergraduate level in music and agriculture. Since 2007, we have had a DirecTrack to Teachingoption that provides early admission for exceptionally qualified UMN undergraduates majoring in content areas across the university to the CEHD post-baccalaureate licensure programs in art, business and marketing, English, family and consumer science, mathematics, science, world languages, English as a second language, social studies, and special education. The percentage of our program completers who report that they secure teaching positions in their first year has declined over the last three years. Of those securing positions, approximately 85% remain in Minnesota to teach.

Note: Data from teachers who completed in 2008 are currently being collected.

Recruitment and Admissions

New recruitment strategies will focus on four areas:

1)Diversify our teacher candidate pool.

The struggle to diversify the teaching force nationwide is well documented. We believe that a teaching force that more closely resembles the increasingly diverse student population in Minnesota is essential for providing diverse cultural perspectives in schools, for providing all students with images of a diverse profession of teaching, and for tapping into students’ native language(s) and cultures in ways that will increase student achievement.

2)Recruitexceptionally qualified UMN undergraduate students into licensure programs.

Building on the early success of our DirecTrack to Teaching program, we will develop structures to better connect undergraduate students to school experiences and education coursework via collaboration with faculty and advisors in departments across the University, particularly for identified areas of shortage, such as physics, chemistry, and languages.

3)Recruit career changers for whom teaching is a goal.

Since the beginning of our post-baccalaureate preparation programs, approximately 50% of the secondary licensure candidates have been career changers. While this percent has declined somewhat, we see that individuals who are changing careers continue to enroll in our programs. Developing multiple avenues into the licensure programs will be a goal of TERI.

4)Redesign and expand recruitment materials.

Given that we currently have few areas in Minnesota in which we experience shortages of available licensed teachers, we want to recruit the strongest candidates into our programs. To do this, we will create recruitment materials that clearly identify the UMN signature of preparing teachers who are adaptive experts and who relentlessly focus on student learning.

New admissionprocedures will be changed using two processes.

1)Revise current admission criteria based on an analysis of predictive criteria.

We seek to identify admission criteria that predict successful performance of candidates both in our licensure programs and in their first three years of teaching.We will do this by conducting an analysis of current admissions criteria as predictors of success and revise admission criteria to focus on selection of candidates who demonstrate those attributes that lead to success.

2)Develop admission procedures to assess professional commitments.

We recognize that both academic preparation and particular dispositions or professional commitments are needed for effective teaching. Our school-based partners have told us that they would like to hire beginning teachers who demonstrate the commitment to focus relentlessly on student learning and take responsibility for the learning of all students without seeking excuses in the community, family, and culture of the students. They want teachers who can communicate and collaborate with each other and with the families and communities of their students. In response to our school partners, we will develop admission procedures that identify candidates with the potential to demonstrate these commitments as teachers.

Summary of changes in recruitment and admissions processes

• Exceptionally qualified UMN undergraduate content majors guaranteed early post-baccalaureate admission if program requirements are fulfilled
• Students enter as sophomores

• elementary education

• early childhood education
• kinesiology (physical education)

1. Diversify our teacher candidate pool.

1. Recruit exceptionally qualified UMN undergraduate students into licensure programs

1. Recruit career changers for whom teaching is a goal.

1. Redesign and expand recruitment materials.

• bachelor’s degree
• 2.8 minimum GPA
• 100 hours of experience working or volunteering in a classroom
• work with diverse community
• completed content-specific prerequisite coursework

1. Revise current admission criteria based on an analysis of predictive criteria.

1. Develop admission procedures to assess professional commitments.

Prepare

The redesign of our teacher education programs focuses on four core areas.

1)Develop and renew partnerships with districts and schools.

Based on the conceptual work of the Holmes Partnership and the research conducted by its members, we intend to adopt a Professional Development School (PDS) model in creating and renewing school and district partnerships with the university. The NCATE standards for developing and maintaining PDSs will guide our work. NCATE’s vision of a PDS partnership is:

A Professional Development School (PDS) is a collaboratively planned and implemented partnership for the academic and clinical preparation of interns and the continuous professional development of both school system and institution of higher education (IHE) faculty. The focus of the PDS partnership is improved student performance through research-based teaching and learning. A PDS may involve a single or multiple schools, school systems and IHEs and may take many forms to reflect specific partnership activities and approaches to improving both teacher education and PreK-12 schools.

We strongly stand by the premise that these partnerships must be beneficial to all partners. Our partners tell us that they are engaging with us because they 1) know their P-12 students will benefit from the expertise and resources that the University will offer from both CEHD faculty and faculty across the University; 2) that they trust the University for the quality of teacher preparation and teacher development that it can offer to their teachers; and 3) that a partnership with the University will provide opportunities to develop the leadership and instructional practices of their faculty.

For the University, the partnerships will provide high quality clinical experiences for our candidates in places wherewe will be able to provide ongoing support. The University will also benefit from the expertise of master teachers within our partner districts as we create teaching opportunities for them on our campus and in the PDSs. Through our partnerships, we will have the ability to place candidates in classrooms with teachers who demonstrate effective practices and develop professional development opportunities for cooperating teachers related to mentoring and instructional coaching to assist them in their work with preservice candidates.

All PDS clinical experiences will be coordinated in such a way that research, theory, and practice are meaningfully integrated and applied toward the goal of P-12 student learning. All candidates will complete a set of core performance assessments in key areas of pedagogical development. Candidates will spend the majority of their time at school sites under the supervision of a school-university liaison who will work with both the candidates and the cooperating teachers. The candidate will have structured observational experiences in several dimensions of the school (e.g., administrative, counseling, cafeteria, playground, extra-curricular) and a concentrated period of time with a cooperating teacher for practice teaching. Cohorts will meet regularly at the school site for general pedagogical preparation with the liaison and with university faculty in “courses” on content pedagogy, foundational ideas, and other specialized areas of preparation.

In the first year of implementation, about 25% of our candidates will have their clinical experience in PDSs in our partner districts. The remaining candidates will be expected to complete the same core performance assessments in high quality clinical placements. As more schools within our district partners are identified and developed as PDSs, more of our candidates will have access to PDS clinical placements. We anticipate that within five years of implementation all of our candidates will be prepared in a PDS clinical setting.

2)Revise curriculum to meet today’s and tomorrow’s school needs.

We annually survey our program completers near the end of their first year of teaching and we hold three annual meetings with an external advisory board comprising school/district administrators, graduates of our programs, state legislators, and members of the business community. Survey results and feedback from the advisory board consistently show that candidates and school employers view our program completers as having strong subject matter expertise. However, the data and feedback have helped us identify four areas in which we need to strengthen our curriculum: 1) preparation for work with special education students; 2) preparation for work with English language learners; 3) development of cultural competence; and 4) preparation for working effectively with families and communities. During summer 2009, over 40 faculty members from our college and members of the school community began work on curriculum redesign. Four task groups developed key outcomes expected of candidates in each of the areas identified above. Three additional groups addressed integrating technology in instructional design, reading in the content areas because of new Minnesota state requirements, and assessment and learning due to our commitment to preparing teachers who can relentlessly focus on student learning.

3)Develop core performance assessments of teacher candidates.

Candidates across all licensure programs will engage in common core performance assessments in addition to their individual program’s existing content-specific pedagogical focus. Experiences that will support candidates both theoretically and in their performance on these assessments will be developed in course work that will occur either in a university classroom or in a clinical setting. At the national level, the University of Minnesota has been selected as one of the institutions to pilot a national Teacher Performance Assessment as a capstone assessment of teacher preparation. This assessment requires candidates to present an authentic example of their own teaching that includes planning instruction for specific students in a specific context, enacting instruction (video and analysis), assessing learning (student work analysis), and reflecting on the outcomes and next steps for instruction. We will continue to work on this initiative and integrate it with the work of TERI.

4)Engage university faculty in professional development opportunities.

During the summer 2009 Task Group debriefing, members of the faculty suggested that to be successful in achieving the identified curriculum reforms our faculty would need to have access to ongoing professional development in these key areas. As part of the redesign, the Dean’s office will host a series of college-wide professional development sessions for faculty and staff on topics such as integration of instructional technologies into University courses, the preparation and scoring of new assessments, and cultural identity and competency.

Summary of changes in preparation programs

1. Develop criteria for partnerships

1. Implement PDS model

• Mutual benefits for partners
• School – University liaison works with school faculty and teaching candidates
• Professional preparation and support for cooperating teachers

• Learning, Cognition, and Assessment
• Developmental and Individual Differences
• School and Society
• Human Relations
• Technology for Teaching and Learning

• Pedagogical content knowledge assessed in class-embedded assessments
• Professional dispositions assessed on rubric throughout the program
• Observations in clinical experiences made by cooperating teacher and the University supervisors
• Overall summative assessment using rubric aligned with the Minnesota Standards of Effective Practice for Teachers

1. Develop and renew partnerships with districts and schools.

• Use NCATE standards to guide partnership development
• Identify PDS sites within the districts
• All candidates prepared in PDS clinical setting within five years

1. Revise curriculum to have stronger coherence between course work and with clinical work (using wrap-around, modular, and thematic designs), and address topics identified by school partners as high-need areas:

• Special education
• English language learners
• Cultural competence
• Families and communities
• Integrating technology with instruction
• Reading in the content areas
• Assessment and learning

1. Develop core performance assessments of teacher candidates.

• Clinically and course-embedded
• National Teacher Performance Assessment capstone

1. Engage university faculty in professional development opportunities.

Place

In conversations with our potential partners, no district has indicated a willingness to guarantee jobs to teachers we recommend for licensure. As a result, we expect that securing guarantees of placement for our candidates will be a process that will take several years to achieve. We will work with our partner districts to establish mutually acceptable procedures for placing students in beginning teaching positions. One possible first step is that districts guarantee our program completers an interview for open positions for which they are qualified. Guaranteed interviews should lead to a high percentage of hires as districts come to value our well-prepared candidates and view them as an investment in student learning.

The guarantee of employment for our program completers will require four conditions. First, we will need well-established partnerships such that each partner is fully confident of the quality and commitment of the other. Our guarantee of effectiveness must be in place and districts must understand the concept of performance of adaptive experts and the benefits of hiring our candidates. Second, districts will need to make accurate predictions of their hiring needs at least two years in advance, allowing us to make adaptations in the number of students admitted to our programs. Third, we will need commitment on the part of the district to hire our program completers. The teachers’ union mustbe supportive of the policy of guaranteed jobs for our program completers. Finally, we will need strategies for appropriately matching candidates with job openings, taking into consideration the professional goals and strengths of the candidate and the needs of the school and district.